Hi Angela,
When you wrote:
I don't know why that struck me the way it did. I had always felt that I lost out on my childhood, and thought that I had dealt with it in the past. Apparently I had some unresolved feelings about it. It felt good to let it out.
The first thing that crossed my mind was that if you still are a people pleaser, you haven't dealt with it enough.
A life time of pattern behaviour is an awful lot of reinforcement. It could take consistent effort over a significant amount of time to have "dealt with it".The pattern is a good indicator as to how affected you are.
I find it helpful to replace one behaviour with another and one line of thinking with another. Of course, this requires having a plan as to what the replacements should be. It requires knowing what a healthy action or thought would be. Some times this requires asking others you trust to be objective and healthy, as you will find on this network.
You had mentioned not knowing what, specifically to do with emerging emotions.
I find allowing yourself to feel them fully without rationalizing them really beneficial.
It is also a good idea to try to trace back to the earliest memory of experiencing the emotion, each time hopefully going further back, eventually getting close to the initial experience.
Pay close attention to your body as you feel the emotion, taking note of any sensations that might arise in response, be they tension, tingles, pain, etc. I believe this helps because our body has an emotional memory as well, so by allowing yourself to fully experience an emotion, including giving your body permission to play back its memory, you help desensitize or neutralize the emotion, OSIT.
Regarding Hydromorphone: I find it acts the quickest and lasts the longest. But as you've noticed, after it peaks, its effectiveness fades rather quickly.
There are a few things that are important to know.
If you take the pills during high levels of pain, they aren't as effective. It is much better to take them earlier, long before pain peaks in intensity (easier said than done, I know).
As well, the amount you take should eliminate the pain (unless it is neuropathic pain, for which the goal is more reduction of pain, as little will completely eradicate nerve pain, in my experience).
If you find you still have pain after taking the medication, an increase in dosage might be in order. Many doctors are afraid of prescribing too much as they might get flagged as being irresponsible by the government or because they don't understand the dynamics of pain relief adequately, or the have been misinformed about addiction and fear they may enable it. A recent study in Canada showed the majority of both hospitalized geriatric and cancer patients were under-medicated and suffering as a result.
If the pain is constant, you might benefit from a long lasting version (Hydromorph Contin) and use the straight Dilaudid for breakthrough. If the breakthrough is often, the contin should probably be increased.
Finally, if you feel it would benefit, try getting a referral to a pain clinic or pain specialist. These guys understand pain.
I remember at one point I was taking 72 mg of Dilaudid and still had significant pain. Ny doctor was way past her comfort zone and said it was unheard if to take that much. She referred me to a specialist who didn't even bat an eye when I told him how much I was taking, saying it is quite common for sufferers of chronic, severe nerve pain to require such significant levels.
I think it is also important to remember how important solid sleep is. Pain is exhausting and causes a lot of stress hormones to be released. Reparitive sleep is required to help the body regenerate itself. Pain perception is usually increased when fatigued, as well.
I wish you all the healing you deserve and will remember you in my prayers.
Take care,
Gonzo
